The ethnonationalists, oligarchs, tech bros, and national security bros who form Trump’s team are talking about a revolution.
By Van Jackson, Foreign Policy In Focus
The revolution may not be televised, but the counter-revolution sure will be.
In this new political era, the dominant military power in the capitalist world-system is ruled by a Venn Diagram of baddies—ethnonationalists, oligarchs, tech bros, and national security hawks. These elites take their opportunity to direct state power from the legitimacy afforded a single man. One of the only common elements about the diverse (but majority white and male) votes cast for Donald Trump is that they all saw Washington liberal elites as the enemy.
To put it differently, Trump voters were against one set of ruling-class elites and so cast their vote for a man who has surrounded himself with a different cadre of ruling-class elites, all of whom seem to fashion themselves as enemies of the previous dominant set. MAGA politics marks the emergence of political counter-elites with nothing short of revolutionary ambitions.
But what does that mean? Why is nobody talking about what is obviously emerging—counter-elites who are literally talking about revolution?

In parsing the distinctions and overlaps among conservatives, reactionaries, and the forgotten category of counter-revolutionaries, everything is at stake.
Everybody’s go-to text today for these terms and concepts—terms that typologize the political right—seems to be Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind. A fine book, but a product of its moment (2011) and definitely a distinct take rather than a consensus view about the right. Joe Mackay has also done some work parsing conservative and reactionary in particular.
George Lawson, meanwhile, has made a convincing case that in the context of the age of empires, “counter-revolution” was about countering the revolutionary projects that emerged after the French Revolution. This gave counter-revolution back then a Burkean quality, which is to say conservative in the literal sense—preserving the old order, tradition, and distributions of power. This is the conventional way of understanding counter-revolution.
But in the West right now, and specifically in America, there is no left-revolutionary situation to counter. This is why the dust-binned work of Arno Mayer might be the ideal way to make sense of where this current configuration of right-wing political power is taking America.
Recent Posts
‘Unconstitutional. Unethical. Authoritarian.’ ICE Bars Millions Of Immigrants From Bond Hearings
July 18, 2025
Take Action Now One watchdog said the new policy “seems like a blatant attempt to stop them from exercising their right to due process.”……
Americans Are Not Nearly Alarmed Enough About Climate Change
July 18, 2025
Take Action Now Americans still don’t comprehend how imminent, dangerous, and far-reaching the threat is—and journalists are partly to blame.By…
The IRS Is Building A Vast System To Share Millions Of Taxpayers’ Data With ICE
July 17, 2025
Take Action Now ProPublica has obtained the blueprint for the Trump administration’s unprecedented plan to turn over IRS records to Homeland Security…
Israel’s Sudden Assault On Syria Is Unchecked Aggression
July 17, 2025
Take Action Now Jerusalem is bombing Damascus and threatening al-Sharaa’s rule, while Washington was hoping to help the nascent government on…